00:04:44.000There's a mix of like, okay, this might pull a lot of views.
00:04:47.000So there's like a banger and then there's fillers.
00:04:49.000You know, so like the fillers are like, okay, you're going somewhere to either seek knowledge from that place or learn their culture or film something cool or see the beach.
00:04:58.000Like there's so many different things that might send you to a place.
00:05:28.000So when it's like the more, I guess, exclusive situations, that obviously takes overtakes all that overtakes everything because at that point, you got an opportunity, probably a small window.
00:05:39.000These are people that might not be the most rational.
00:05:41.000So like you got to get there immediately.
00:06:17.000Is there any fear at all going to these spots?
00:06:19.000Because I could only imagine how much danger you would be in in the wrong position.
00:06:23.000There's no fear at all because I'm not going in with bad intention.
00:06:27.000So like, I'm not trying to harm anybody when I go.
00:06:29.000I'm trying to go and soak in as much information from their land that we've never been taught and see if I can see it in a different perspective at the same time, shift their perspective a little.
00:06:40.000You know, like, hey, I'm also an American and I'm not trying to kill you.
00:07:41.000So finding the balance between making an entertaining, authentic vlog and making it go viral, you kind of have to balance these dangerous places and names and big names so that you can pull in that stream of attention, right?
00:07:54.000Like the Taliban series, that's a guaranteed billion views.
00:07:58.000Like, it's going to do a billion views if I just all the social media.
00:08:05.000Like, it still does five to 10 million a day of just random clips, people clipping it.
00:08:09.000And, oh, that's the guy that went to Afghanistan.
00:08:13.000And when you make content like that, I'm assuming, like, you probably have a very, most creators, their bases in the United States or Canada or English-speaking countries.
00:08:20.000I would imagine with you, it's probably pretty international.
00:08:24.000Yeah, I actually try to avoid the U.S.
00:08:27.000I come to the U.S. only like one month a year, mainly because of the food.
00:08:32.000The food in the U.S. is kind of poison.
00:11:11.000Like, yeah, they're like targeting military officials, intelligence officials, military bases, stuff like that.
00:11:16.000Because at the same time, like, they don't want to escalate too much with the Gulf countries and like, you know, because Dubai, for example, launders a lot of their money through and they're sanctioned.
00:11:31.000So it's a combination of like, all right, we got to balance views with danger and obviously get people entertained.
00:11:37.000So like, what are your countries that you go to when you don't care about more importantly than balancing views and danger is the experience of knowledge.
00:11:44.000The only thing I won't get back is time.
00:11:46.000So when I'm sitting with a Taliban for seven days, I'm absorbing everything they're telling me.
00:12:10.000Like there's 40 million real people that don't fight.
00:12:12.000They just cook rice all day and they have families.
00:12:15.000So when you come in from like an open-minded perspective and you see the land as just another tribe, the whole game shifts.
00:12:23.000Like I'm not going in and perceiving them as terrorists for an event that happened 20 plus years ago that we all know was probably done by other people.
00:12:35.000Because in America, media coverage is basically it's very biased.
00:12:38.000They believe, okay, these are the enemies.
00:16:12.000The most important thing is that you have to be quick.
00:16:14.000You don't want to overstay your welcome.
00:16:16.000So, like, you can see everybody, and then depending on who the biggest threat in the room is, like, if somebody's looking at you with an evil eye, you target them first.
00:17:23.000So like, so I think the Lebanese guys went to Brazil and they were like, oh my God, we found the one country with more beautiful women because they work out.
00:17:33.000They're not genetically, but they work out so they're automatically fitness culture is huge in Brazil.
00:27:48.000Yeah, so imagine him walking the streets.
00:27:50.000Yo, you're cooked because the thing is, is that people are going to feel more comfortable trying to talk to speed than Drake, you know, and that's why streamers have so much like okay, I figured this out too, like from the Kamala campaign.
00:28:01.000You have fame and then you have influence.
00:28:43.000It's like, it's all about internet attention through this, through streaming, through YouTube, through clips.
00:28:49.000The 2024 election red-pilled me on that.
00:28:51.000Like, I always had the suspicion, but then when I saw Trump, like, mop the floor with Kamala Harris and he only did podcasts and like streamers stuff.
00:28:59.000Meanwhile, she had like LeBron James and A-list celebrities endorsing her.
00:30:47.000And they were telling me, bro, they were telling me, like, dude, I was literally in the protest, burning police cars, and then bullets start ripping past us.
00:39:54.000Yeah, all right, so you make it into Haiti, so you get in a car crash, luckily you're fine, you get into Haiti, um, and then when you get there, what's the first thing you did when you got into across the border?
00:40:03.000Well, I got smuggled across the border, oh shit, okay, running because it was on camera as well.
00:40:08.000Okay, you can see me literally crossing through the jungle or the mountains.
00:41:29.000Because we had no rest, my fixer forgot to wait for approval before we crossed that place.
00:41:34.000He sent the text, but he forgot to wait for approval from like the head of speakers of the warlord to call in this, I don't know, whoever owns this area.
00:42:05.000So you crossed through at a time before getting approval to cross through at that time.
00:42:09.000Yeah, like they're in communication, but he sends a text and then we end up going before waiting 30 minutes or an hour for the guy to replace.
00:42:15.000And then I obviously put you in the middle of the people.
00:42:17.000Yeah, by the time they pulled up and we're ambushed, like the phone's ringing.
00:42:31.000The gang that you were supposed to get Clarence through when that's them by and they're all like friends when they need to be, but they're enemies.
00:42:37.000Like everyone wants their own ego of like, I'm the warlord.
00:42:50.000And then like, imagine like we're talking to like El Chapo and then like a smaller guy who's also almost just as strong on the come up takes us.
00:48:55.000Like I'm stuck in a room for 17 days and I have nothing but me and God and figuring out what I have done wrong to end up in this situation where I might have relied on myself and not a higher power and where I might have let my ego get too inflated.
00:51:39.000By the time nighttime comes, like throughout the day, a few gangsters will come through at the beginning.
00:51:44.000Like the warlord comes through a bit more, but then he's got to go run his operations.
00:51:49.000They come through, they chat with you, they bring you food once a day, either like noodles and ketchup or like rice and a half a boiled egg.
00:56:56.000Yes, especially Porto Prince and especially knowing about the and knowing the exchange between Portal Prince and Capasian because that is like the suburbs and there are people who are from Capasian.
00:58:13.000Like, the view is just a metric to enhance the business and multiply the message further.
00:58:18.000So like, I'm not attached to if I get a one of 10 on YouTube or a five of 10.
00:58:24.000Like, I'm going to try to make the best art and I'm going to continue building.
00:58:28.000But the biggest revelation of the letting go was like actually after when I had to get out on a US helicopter out of Port-au-Prince and they wouldn't let us take our suitcase.
00:58:39.000You're only allowed one bag, and it can't be a hard bag.
00:58:44.000So I had to get rid of like all the trinkets that I had from my kidnapping and I had to like specifically get rid of like my favorite clothes and all these things.
00:58:52.000And so I was like, okay, what am I going to get rid of?
01:01:37.000Yeah, and it's like you realize that like there's a lot more to the world than just you.
01:01:45.000And there's a power that can help you.
01:01:47.000Like, just as this guy sold his soul to the devil, this warlord, for earthly things, you can, I don't want to say sell your soul, but sell your soul to a higher purpose that helps the world.
01:02:00.000And in doing so, God blesses you with gifts and people from different angles that you would have never expected.
01:02:08.000And so the game stopped being about content and views and about figuring out what this force is and how to maximize the output for the world.
01:02:22.000I'm no longer like just trying to clip farm.
01:02:24.000I'm actually trying to provide value with these places that I go and change the world to a more human to understand that like we're all just human.
01:04:21.000Okay, so you were there at day 12, and then that after they took that extra money, it took you a couple more days, get more money, gave them roughly, you know, 40, let's say 40,000, just to keep it simple.
01:07:05.000What I'm saying is, like, when I say the coordinating stuff, I mean as in, like, I'm assuming maybe they were negotiating with someone from the U.S. or whatever.
01:14:14.000And then also living in the present moment.
01:14:16.000Like I'm not super worried about the next month.
01:14:19.000I know that, okay, just as God can send people in your life and gifts from here and there, you can also send money.
01:14:25.000It's just, it's just a fucking, it's a tool to help you get to the next step.
01:14:30.000So I think if you're using your money in a proper way to build things that are with purpose and provide value, you end up making a lot more and you end up better off as well.
01:14:55.000I'll go to the most luxury villas and penthouses and I'll also go to the slums and I'll see the whole country from all its angles.
01:15:04.000And I'm still so mind blown every time I go to a new country.
01:15:08.000Like I realize how small I am and how little my knowledge is of the world.
01:15:12.000Like I might have a lot of ability to understand how to get through these places, but when I go to a new country, how much am I, I mean, I learned, I go to Brazil.
01:15:24.000I learned how these people communicate with a different style of communication than we do in America.
01:15:29.000I learned how these people help each other.
01:15:30.000I learned the different food styles, the culinary experiences.
01:15:33.000So many things that just shift your perspective and force you to be humbled.
01:15:37.000And you can only get that by traveling because all those countries exist at the very moment.
01:15:43.000While we're sitting here on this podcast, there's a Hong Kong crackden that I filmed where 30 people are in a room this size doing opium and fentanyl and different right now.
01:17:29.000So take us through how the Afghanistan trip.
01:17:31.000First of all, before we start, like, what's your opinion of the Taliban as an American homeland security Fed?
01:17:39.000Well, obviously, you know, you're going to look at the paramilitary version of it and be like, oh, yeah, these guys are insurgents that blah, blah, blah.
01:18:00.000They obviously, you know, this is a big reason why they don't want to invade Iran right now is because they understand that that landscape of Afghanistan is very good with it.
01:18:25.000These guys, these guys are like, and the thing is, it's like Green Beret, Navy SEALs, like they were like fighting these guys in the mountains, and they still had a hard time.
01:18:32.000And these dudes are just, they're just fucking farmers.
01:18:35.000They use an AK-47 for World War II, some surplus weaponry, and they got goats and sheep and that stuff.
01:20:29.000Emrika, even if they have an atomic bomb, we are fighting for Allah, so they will not win.
01:20:37.000You can bomb the country and they will still come out as the Taliban.
01:20:45.000So I think because we live in such a attention economy where everyone can go around vlogging the world with their phone, we're at the point where we've seen enough and it's no longer controlled propaganda.
01:20:58.000There's so many different angles to see.
01:21:01.000So people are starting to see the humanity in it all.
01:21:03.000They're starting to see the actual, yeah, the ability for you to go and sit with somebody in Syria who's part of the military and be invited to dinner at his house.
01:21:14.000As a human, not as an American or as a Syrian, as a human.
01:23:18.000Where there were some military operations that were needed here and there, of course.
01:23:21.000But the full-on occupation of Afghanistan, the war in Iraq, people are getting red-pilled on this topic, like more so now than ever before.
01:46:52.000I have the experience of like literally sitting with 20 generals holding guns and trying to explain to them in a very soft way that I just don't want to say that Muhammad is the last messenger.
01:47:33.000But my beliefs have evolved very as I've traveled the world and sat with gurus and sheikhs.
01:47:39.000And I don't think it's just about one religion.
01:47:42.000I think the religions have a core concept they're trying to teach, but you can absorb from all of them and then tie that to your way of knowing it.
01:47:51.000No, you know, I think that's another propaganda thing when it comes to Islam.
01:47:54.000They try to make it like, oh, they kill Christians and everything.
01:47:57.000Like, obviously it's someplace when there's war, but like if you're like there in peacetimes, like, you know, historically, and if you read the Quran, like, literally, Muslims look at Christians.